


under heaven (all is well)

by anticommute



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: "chapter 5" is an epilogue u_u, Gen, I'M SORRY ABOUT THE CHAPTER 4: CHAPTER 3 BULL, M/M, OK BUT WHY ISN'T CHAPTER 2.5 VALID, Right?, THE CHAPTER NUMBERED 3 IS AN INTERLUDE BUT CHAPTER 2.5 ISN'T VALID????, alternatively just rly inaccurate historical china au, alternatively watching baijiajiangtan when i have nothing better to do, and the random snippets from across the 5000 years of chinese history i know, but chaptes is fine too, but sure, but then i realised i am bad at killing people, butt plugs is not what i wanted, etc - Freeform, i'm just adding cts to these tags, it's kinda fun, like i used to watch these dramas when i was idk 7 and i don't remember shit sort of inaccurate, might've worked better as diff fics in a collection, ngl i really wanted to kill A Certain Fuckface, okay i'll shut up now, promising no character death tho, really inaccurate, romance of the three kingdoms au, the fic end notes from hell, there really are only 3 chapters, they had butt plugs back then, welp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:05:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticommute/pseuds/anticommute
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>layhan rot3k au, or where lu han is the king of a failing kingdom following the demise of the han dynasty, yixing is his loyal but hapless vassal, and everything would be less fucked up without traitors in their midst</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter 1

"The traitor has escaped, my lord."

Yixing delivers this news not without trepidition. He would not be the first vassal to be struck down simply for being the messenger. And in this case, it could be said that he was complicit in the failure as well. As he kneels on one knee, head bowed, he finds himself worrying his lip between his teeth.

The tension in the audience room is louder than thunder. When Yixing had rushed in, ran in, earlier, he'd noticed the people in the room, the officials, the advisors, but he hadn't truly taken note of them, only repeating the words that needed to be said in his mind, and hoping that he would not stumble in the delivery.

The silence is broken - "take him away," someone says, and Yixing's heart falls. He squeezes his eyes shut as he feels hands haul him bodily to his feet. But he has failed. And this is a time of high tensions, when no failure can be accepted.

He could accept this, maybe... Except--

"Stop."

Yixing looks up at the familiar voice. Lu Han, dressed in his formal robes, frowns down at him. At them. The men, the guards, do stop. Yixing stumbles, his legs suddenly weak, but catches himself and stays on his feet.

"Thank you, my lord," he says quickly. "I—"

"We cannot afford to waste lives here." Lu Han cuts in, and he is not smiling. "Unfortunately, losing your command would do more harm than good. Wait where I will find you for further orders."

The look in Lu Han's eyes is strange, unreadable, and Yixing, if anyone, is the one who has learned to read Lu Han's every movement. But right now, he bows, stammers another thanks, and retreats as fast as is appropriate, and wonders a little who it was who'd been most eager to have had him killed.

-

The outermost door opens, and Yixing looks up at the sound. Wait where I will find you, Lu Han had said, and since they were children, that had meant his room. So here he is, kneeling in the center of the room, watching Lu Han stride through the doors, and slam the door sht behind him.

"Idiot, idiot, _idiot_." Lu Han is angry, livid - three large steps, and then Yixing reels backwards, tumbling onto the floor.

He stares up at Lu Han silently, his face stinging where Lu Han's fist had met it. He blinks, unsure of what he's done this time, and what he's supposed to do now.

"Idiot," Lu Han mutters again. He hauls Yixing to his feet and gestures violently at the bed. Hesitantly, Yixing goes and sits down. Gently, he prods at his cheek and winces. Lu Han hadn't gone easy.

He sits, still silent, as Lu Han stomps away to the door before pulling himself to composure as he opens the door and asks for tea. Or more precisely, he demands to know why no one has brought tea yet, and that they were all useless. Yixing winces, this time in sympathy for the _yatou_ on the receiving end of Lu Han's bad mood.

Which was altogether his fault.

"I told her not to," Yixing finally says. "I said I'd just wait here."

Lu Han is glowering as he turns, stripping his robes off and kicking them onto the floor. Yixing raises an eyebrow - he doesn't think that's a good idea, but it's probably a worse idea to point it out. He's also carrying a sword, they all do, these days, and that too gets tossed into some corner. As Lu Han nears, Yixing draws back involuntarily - but all his old friend and his lord does is drop down heavily onto the bed next to Yixing, wrapping his arms around Yixing's neck and burying his face in his shoulder.

Yixing freezes - but then habit takes over, and he runs a soothing hand through Lu Han's hair, smoothing out the tangles, feels each bump of Lu Han's spine.

"It'll be okay," he says, but even so, he has a hard time believing it.

Even so, he'd like nothing more than to do exactly what Lu Han is doing, but his anger keeps him taut, pulled back.

"You're going to die," Lu Han mumbles into Yixing's clothes. "I'm going to send you off to die."

A knot of dread settles in Yixing's chest, but he refuses to let it show through his voice. He knows though, he knows what Lu Han means. The traitor - Yixing refuses to think of him as anything else now, regardless of how much history they have between them beyond these few short days - is no doubt safely esconced behind enemy lines now, revealing their secrets, their defences. Their last line of defences, as their borders kept shrinking, and their cities kept disappearing. To not at least attempt to seal the traitor's mouth would be folly. To attempt to seal the traitor's mouth would be folly to whoever attempted it, leading more certainly to death than to success.

"I'm not going to die," Yixing says, with far more conviction than he feels. "Hey, I'm not that easy to kill!"

He laughs, and gets socked in the stomach as a reward.

"You _idiot_ , why did you have to tell everyone?" Lu Han pulls back, drawing a hand fiercely across his eyes.

A pang of guilt spikes through Yixing. Rarely, has he ever seen Lu Han cry. But the pressure of holding together a country that was falling apart day by day, and the horrible, sinking feeling of betrayal - Yixing would think that was enough for anyone.

He bites his lip, considering Lu Han's question. "I had to tell you right away," he says. He looks away. "It was urgent."

"But now everyone knows, and everyone knows it's you, and you know that dumb old man, he's been wanting to get rid of you for ages--"

"He's not that old," Yixing interjects. The 'dumb old man' is also his uncle, but his uncle had never been on good terms with his own father, and, well. Yixing presses his lips together, and pats Lu Han on the head.

"It'll be okay," he says again. "It'll be okay."

There is a knock on the door - the tea - and Lu Han shoots Yixing a pointed look before he goes to retrieve it. He places the tray on the floor and sits down next to it, with about none of the decorum one should expect out of him. But Yixing is used to it, Yixing has known Lu Han for a long time, and he just sighs, and joins him on the floor as Lu Han pours them both tea.

"You're still an idiot," Lu Han says, as he wraps his hands around the cup. But Yixing is glad to see that his brows have smoothed out, and that whatever wave of anger had carried him into the room seems to be slowly dissapating.

"Probably," Yixing agrees. "But so are you."

Lu Han laughs, short and bitter. "I'm an idiot for liking an idiot," he says. He stops, suddenly. Looks away.

The tea is warm in his hands, but Yixing puts it down. He reaches over the tray and catches Lu Han's cheek in his palm, turning his face until they see eye to eye. Lu Han, however, seems desperate to look anywhere but at him. Yixing thinks it's cute.

"You haven't changed," he says. He'd intended it as a question, but it had come anything but.

Waning childhood, watermelons, and long summer afternoons spent hidden in the storage rooms when they should have been sitting at lessons. The sweet taste of peaches, and the light touch of Lu Han's lips. It had tasted of fruit, young and fresh, but this time, now, Yixing tastes the tea, a faint hint of baijiu, and the worry of blood. They are older now, much older, each with two full cycles of the zodiac behind them, and more.

But this is the same, the way Lu Han's eyes linger, the way he turns away, the way his lips are parted like he wants to say what he wants, but at the same time, is too afraid to let the words slip through.

Finally: "I can't lose you too." The words, when they come, are so soft, that had they not been as close as they were, they would have escaped notice entirely.

" _ying suo zhi qi, bu dan zai tian_ ," Yixing says softly. He presses another soft kiss to Lu Han's forehead, brushing away his bangs. "I have no intention of dying, just because heaven decrees it."

"You're an idiot," Lu Han says. Yixing lets his head fall just enough, until their foreheads rest against each other. He closes his eyes, and reaches for Lu Han's hand.

"Okay," he says. "But you're pretty stupid too."

"Am not. How?"

"I don't want to lose anyone either," Yixing says. "And that includes you."

His words hang in the air, heavy only with their breathing, with their worry and their fear and their anger and their rage, and these are all the things that buoy his words, holding them up until they fall slowly, and fade away. A short sword hangs heavy against his hip, and the weight of the future is heavy on his mind. But, as he threads his fingers through Lu Han's, or as Lu Han thread's his fingers for his, and they sit there, side by side with their eyes closed, for a moment - just a moment - Yixing can imagine all the weight disappear, and for a moment, feel lighter than a summer kiss.

-

They will sneak in, dressed as fleeing civilians until they are within distance. Some of the advisors believed they should charge in shamelessly, banners flying - the kingdom of Xu did not require underhand tactics. Lu Han had shut them up fast enough, with the reminder that if they didn't employ whatever tactics they had, they wouldn't have a kingdom to speak of. As to the details of the plan, well that fell to Yixing to manage, as their main strategists had either been disposed of, or were busy on other fronts. After all, no one expected them to succeed.

The one concession that is granted is that Yixing can choose who makes up the party. Lu Han suggests it, and it is suggested in a way that no one refuted. Well, Yixing thinks, at least he gets to decide who he dies with.

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he gives his head a fierce shake. No, the first step to defeat was to believe in defeat. And until defeat arrived, he had no intention to face it.

Lu Han finds him in his own chambers this time, Yixing sitting at the table, brush in hand, hovering over a blank sheet of paper. When Lu Han enters, Yixing puts the brush down, and stands up to retrieve the tea.

"There's no time for _tea_ ," Lu Han says sharply, but Yixing disregards him.

"There's always time for tea," he says calmly. "Tea is an integral part of a good life."

"You--" Lu Han begins, but thinks better of whatever he was going to say, and sits back down in the chair. Yixing sits down across from him, sliding a cup of tea over to his friend. Yixing wraps his fingers around his own cup, peering over it at Lu Han. He'd come here for something, and Yixing wants to know what.

After a long moment, Lu Han looks away and sighs. "If there's anyone--"

"Who has a death wish?" Yixing says point blank. "You can send them to me."

Lu Han gapes at him and Yixing sighs, placing his cup on the table before massaging his temple. Days after his world seemingly overturned, it threatens to topple and crumble a final time. He's exhausted, he's angry, he's strung so tight that sleep eludes him, and he wants more than anything for Lu Han to be able to rest safe at night. This is not helping Lu Han rest safe at night. This is making him worry.

"Sorry," Yixing says. "I don't know what came over me."

Lu Han's lips are pressed together into a thin line. "You leave at first light," he says. A pause, a beat. An unsaid agreement to leave the obvious unsaid. "You should finalize your decisions before the sun falls."

Yixing nods. "I've asked Zitao for his opinion," he says. Out of all the men he has available, he trusts Zitao the most. He may have been young, but his experience was plentiful. More importantly, he excelled where Yixing did not, and counted many as his friends. And perhaps, if anyone had a right to be angered at Yifan's betrayal beyond respect for their lord, it was Zitao, who had been all but raised by Yifan. Yixing wasn't sure if Zitao has slept at all these few days - first out of worry, then out of fear which slid quickly into confusion, and finally, as the news was brought back, into cold, bitter fury. Even before the command had come down, Zitao had been ready. Yixing trusts him to keep a cool head. He hopes he is right.

Lu Han is not so sure. "Will he be suitable?" He frowns, as if in thought.

"He will," Yixing says, nodding again. He leans back now, rests his head against the wall, hands resting on his lap as he stares straight in front of him, across the room he has occupied since he was still a child. The room is small and out of the way, but it's his. Lu Han had offered to move him to a new room, but Yixing had clung stubbornly to his apartments and rearranged the furniture. He would miss it. He wondered if it would miss him. A faint flutter of fear surfaces, and he swallows it down, shoving it so deep that fear is splashed upwards, and Yixing closes his eyes.

Lu Han notices. "Xing?" There is a hand on his arm, and Yixing tenses. "What's wrong?"

"I'm scared," he says. His fingers dig into his palms, and he doesn't dare to look. He seems to be shaking, from the inside out. It crawls under his skin, as if begging to be clawed out. "I'm suddenly so scared."

"Idiot," Lu Han says softly. He hits Yixing on the head, and grips his shoulders. "You'd be a fool not to be."

For some odd reason, Yixing laughs. When he opens his eyes, Lu Han is standing in front of him, staring down at him. "Am I an idiot for being scared, or a fool for thinking I wasn't?" he asks. "Is it worse to be an idiot or a fool?"

Lu Han scowls, and smacks his head again. "You're both an idiot and a fool," he says. His expression softens, and suddenly, Yixing is aware of their proximity. He turns away.

"I have to go find Zitao," he says. The paper that is meant to be filled with names is still blank. Lu Han follows his gaze, and nods. He releases Yixing's shoulders and straightens, shaking the folds out of his robes.

"I won't keep you."

Yixing stands as well, and smiles. "It's an honour to be with you, my lord," he says, and doesn't wait for Lu Han to follow before he quietly exits his room.

-

A storm of stave and blade whips through the center of the courtyard, with a black haired young man at the center of it all. His eyes are sharp like the glass stones carried from far beyond the desert, and near as dark as his hair. He is dressed simply, plainly, his long hair bound and tied back - few would know that this was the fourth prince.

Yixing watches from the shadows, not because he is hiding, but because he had barely stepped beyond the building when he'd seen Zitao, and he has no wish to disturb him. Not now, not yet. Muscles ripple under the skin of his bare arms, and a faint sheen of sweat builds across his chest. He is grace at its best, but today, his movements carry a rougher, feral edge.

In the end, it is Zitao who spots Yixing first. He comes to a stop, his stave resting against the floor. Yixing steps forward and bows respectfully. They may have grown up together, but decorum and respect was bred into Yixing's bones. Zitao, however, has always been blunt.

"If you call me prince one more time," he says, before Yixing even opens his mouth.

Yixing smiles as he straightens. "Young master," he says instead, and laughs as Zitao takes a swipe at his head. Zitao scowls, but there is less anger in it than his face has carried in recent days, and Yixing feels his chest twinge. He does not know Zitao well, but he does know that if there is anyone he hopes most strongly will survive, beyond Lu Han, it is this child who is no longer a child.

"What is it?" Zitao asks. "You never come to visit me anymore."

Yixing smiles again, but with a twinge of regret. They both know that his visits had rarely been for Zitao's sake - Zitao simply happened to be there. Now, it is easier to simply remember those times as visits with Zitao.

"I've been busy," Yixing says, and he wonders with a start if Zitao knows the circumstances of this sudden command. He also wonders, briefly, if it had been anyone else, if he had sent someone else to deliver the message the previous day, if they would be standing here now. No, he might not be standing here, but Zitao would have insisted, regardless of who it had been. This fight was one that had to have been fought - but it had been his choices that had lead him to stand where he was.

Zitao's piercing eyes remind him that he is still waiting for an answer, and that Yixing has yet again zoned out.

"About tomorrow," Yixing begins. He frowns, and clears his through. "I came to inquire about tomorrow."

It sounds stiff, strange. It is stiff, strange. Zitao, strangely enough, does not appear worried, nor does he seem scared. Lu Han's words come to mind. No, instead Zitao smiles, and then laughs for the first time in days.

"Are you nervous?" he says. "It's alright. Ah, if it's about what you asked me for, I'll just deliver it to Lu ye myself."

Yixing stands there, confused. The more Zitao says, the more baffled he feels. Finally, he asks: "What's alright?"

Zitao picks up his stave and rests it across his shoulders, his face stretched in a grin. "Tomorrow," he says. He flips the staff blunt end down, and uses it to vault himself onto a roof, where Yixing can only follow with his eyes.

Yixing is quite sure that the stress has finally gotten to the fourth prince, and makes a note to warn Lu Han that Zitao has snapped. Assuming either of them got back alive.

-

If anyone had asked why he had snuck into Lu Han's room after night had fallen, Yixing would have been hard pressed to say why. Why here, why now, why not the door. He was known and welcome and he knew that Jinxiao would hide his visit if he asked. But tonight, one last night, he wanted...

"What are you doing here?"

Light floods the room, and Yixing blinks. The floor is hard, but Yixing remembers spending hours there as a child, and Lu Han had always been particular about his bed. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting there, wonders if he'd dozed off. In the lamplight, Lu Han's face looks haggard, exhausted. The night seems far darker now than it had been when Yixing had first climbed through the window. He blinks and rubs his eyes, as Lu Han closes the door behind him.

"You're not going to ask me how?" Yixing asks. He thinks about standing but his joints are stiff. A slight haze clouds his thoughts, and he waves Lu Han to join him instead.

"I could have you beheaded for that," Lu Han huffs, but he does as Yixing asks anyway. He sits down in front of Yixing, but then changes his mind, shuffling over until they're sitting side by side. He leans back against his bed, and grips Yixing's hand. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't been crown prince. Anyone else could have done a better job."

"Or a worse job," Yixing says. "You can't tell with these things."

Lu Han chuckles. "Zitao came by today," he says. "He seemed happy."

"I think he's finally snapped," Yixing says. "He said it'll be alright."

Unexpectedly, Lu Han's grip tightens, and Yixing sucks in a quick breath of air. He doesn't pull his hand away, and hopes that sooner rather than later, Lu Han will realise it's a hand he's trying to crush to powder, not an inanimate object.

"Don't talk about it," Lu Han says. His voice wavers, and it distracts from the bruising pressure around his fingers. "Just for tonight..."

"Okay." Yixing agrees, quickly. He closes his eyes, and Lu Han's fingers slowly loosen. He feels Lu Han shift until he leans against Yixing, and his hand shift until his fingers fill the gaps between Yixing's. The steady pulse of Lu Han's wrist flutters against his skin, and for a selfish, selfish moment, he wishes Lu Han hadn't been the crown prince either. For a selfish, selfish moment, he wishes that he could just take Lu Han and leave, go somewhere far away, maybe into the mountains, maybe to another town. They could retire to a monastery, or run an inn, and drink together in the moonlight and recite poetry while the tea steeped. But Lu Han had a kingdom to run and Yixing had a traitor to kill. To dispose of, as their orders said.

Yixing lets his own fingers drift, until they rest on top of Lu Han's hand. He twists until he is facing Lu Han, his old friend and king's eyes half closed in thought. He inches forward until their foreheads touch, their eyes so close that they blur out of focus. Lu Han's breath is warm against his face and soft with its touch. Lu Han tilts his chin upwards, their noses bumping, catching Yixing's lower lip between his teeth. Yixing, without hesitation, pushes Lu Han against the bed, and kisses him more fiercely than he has kissed any girl.

Just for tonight, he was going to be selfish.

Their outer robes end up in a tangled pile at their feet, Yixing laughing when Lu Han gets his arm stuck between his sleeve and his sash. Lu Han threatens dire pain if Yixing doesn't help and curse whoever decided he had to wear this many _things_ , and how come Yixing could get by with such simple clothes why was he the only one who had to suffer? Yixing helps, but that doesn't stop him from laughing. He brushes Lu Han's hair fondly from his face, where Lu Han's battle with his clothes had mussed it. With only their innermost layer, Yixing straddles Lu Han's legs and catches his face between his hands.

"You're okay with this?" he asks.

Lu Han smacks his shoulder. "They've been bugging me to get a wife already," he says, and pulls Yixing down so fast that their teeth knock hard. Yixing has a protest half formed, but it's hard to put words to thought when there is a tongue in your mouth. Lu Han kisses with teeth, and he kisses with moans part formed in the back of his throat, so that they travel along Yixing's jaw, shaking him to his core. Yixing is okay with that, okay with the blood that Lu Han draws, okay with the bitter taste of metal in their mouths. He draws his tongue across the roof of Lu Han's mouth, curling up against the inside of his teeth. Lu Han clamps down lightly, and Yixing pulls back, chest rising and falling with a need for breath.

"You can have me as a concubine," Yixing quips.

Lu Han is flushed, even in the dim light. The lamp is too far to shed away much of the darkness, but Lu Han's eyes seem to glow with a light of their own. His hair has slowly become unbound, and it escapes over his shoulder, framing his face in a soft fringe. There is an odd tenseness at the base of his torso - at odds with the languid looseness of the rest of his body, his limbs. He leans in to kiss Lu Han again, slowly this time, as if to memorise every curve, every bump and ridge, every line of his mouth. Lu Han's fingers slip under his clothes, against his chest. His fingers are cool, nearly cold against his skin, and Yixing moans into Lu Han's mouth when his touch slides lower, brushing against a molten coil of heat. Lu Han takes this as encouragement - Yixing buries his face into Lu Han's shoulder, curling into his touch. He wraps his arms around Lu Han's waist, clutching at the back of his clothes. Lu Han's fingers are smooth, hand largely uncalloused - Yixing wonders briefly when the last time he held a sword was, but the thought is quickly lost to the tight squeeze from a hand so different from his own.

Lu Han's fingers trail their way up Yixing's shaft, as if testing for imperfections in a newly carved jade pillar, feeling his way like a blind man through something delicate yet enduring all at once. He rubs his thumb over his head, and Yixing loses himself to coherent thought, taking in only the way Lu Han smells and the touch of his skin. There is something heady about the mere sense that Lu Han is so _close_ , close in a way they have not been in a very long time, and close in a way that they have never been.

There is the feeling of eternity embroidered into seconds, and Yixing could spend forever between the stitches. But all too soon, Lu Han's touch is abruptly absent, and Yixing is prodded to his feet.

"Mmm?" he mumbles coherently. Lu Han has an odd smile on his face, as he turns Yixing around and then drops him on the bed. Yixing falls heavily without any grace, and he grimaces when his elbow knocks sharply against wood. Lu Han doesn't seem to notice, however, as he makes his way to a cabinet with quick steps, and returns with a small sealed jar.

"What's that?"

"I thought you were good at following orders without questions," Lu Han says, dropping onto the bed next to Yixing. When Yixing starts to sit up, Lu Han pushes him back down. Yixing is acutely aware of the dragon no longer in his pants, and stares up at him with eyes wide open.

"Not from you," he says, and gets swiped on the shoulder for his efforts.

Now that Lu Han is in front of him, Yixing can see that he is as aroused as he is. With one movement, Lu Han sits naked, and in a fit of irrational thought, Yixing wishes for the piercing light of midmorning to illuminate the room, so that he could trace the lines of bone and muscle that were hidden in shadow to his eye. He watches, silent, as Lu Han uncaps the jar, a faint fragrance emanating into the air as he does so. He watches as Lu Han dips a hand in the jar, and then gets on his knees so he can reach behind himself, under his thigh, until his fingers ease their way through the center of a blooming chrysanthemum, hidden from Yixing's view. But what is not hidden is the way Lu Han's lips part, his tongue slipping partway through the space, or the way his eyelids fall, his eyes half lidded. And what is most clearly written is what Lu Han most wanted to hide away - too soon, too fast, but it was now or never, and Yixing, in that moment, wonders if his own face is as open a book, a story so clearly written.

The sun has yet to rise when he wakes. Beside him, Lu Han is curled up like a child, blanket slipping off his bare shoulders. Yixing climbs over him to step lightly on the floor. Lu Han shifts, but does not wake. His clothes from last night are scattered nearby, but Yixing disregards them long enough to cover Lu Han with the blanket, and to press one last kiss to his cheek. He stands there for as long as he dares, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the occasional flutter of his lips as he breathes in sleep, the twitch of a finger, the twist of expression as he drifts through his dreams.

The sun has yet to rise, but they were to leave at first light. Dressing quickly, he slips out the way he came. The sky seems to be clear of clouds, but he is unsure if that is a good sign or a poor one. The day promises to be neither warm nor cool, and if the gods were kind, they would have an answer to all this by the end of the night. It isn't until he has returned to his own quarters and changed for travel does he think to leave a message, a note of some kind for Lu Han. But, perhaps, he muses, to do so would be a kind of belief in defeat by itself.

The sheet on his desk still lies blank, the brush unwashed and forgotten. His old tutor would have been furious. Nonetheless, he quickly grinds enough ink for a few words. By the time the sun has risen, the room is empty save for his belongings, and a scroll on the desk that Lu Han will discover by mid morning.

 _Congratulations on being married_ , it says, and Lu Han doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or cry.


	2. chapter 2

It was a trap.

If it hadn't been so predictable - no, if the situation hadn't been what it was, perhaps he would have thought it laughable. But here they were, shadows long in the setting sun, and with no fewer than twenty archers with their arrows trained on the twelve of them, encircled by a small army of mounted soldiers.

Even if he wanted to laugh, he couldn't.

"You did this, you come down here, come down here right now, and face me, and we can sort this out, man to man!"

Zitao's voice echoed through the space, and even if his target did not flinch, the same could not be said for the horses nearest him, their riders having to pull them hard to order. Yixing stepped closer to him and placed a hand on his shoulder - he saw one of the archers twitch at his movement, and he hoped that they wouldn't accidentally shoot him. Accidentally dying would be the worst outcome of all this.

"Zitao," he said quietly. "Calm down."

The fourth prince was a bundle of dark fury, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

"You want me to be calm? How can I be calm? He's standing right there, but he's hiding where I can't reach him! How can I be calm when someone I share blood with has done this!?" Zitao gestured wildly, his blade coming to a rest, a straight line to the one person Yixing has both dreaded and wished to see the most. For two very different reasons.

Other than Zitao, the remainder of the men - and the two women who Zitao had insisted were the best of the best - were quiet and subdued. Yixing ran his eyes over the group. The twins now flanked Zitao, urging him to at least lower his blade, if not sheathe it altogether. Zhou Mi stood to the side, his daggers already pocketed. Some, Yixing didn't know - the boy who Zitao had introduced as his best friend, another who stood aloof, his expression dull but for his eyes, flashing with anger. Yixing understood that they had been drafted from the provinces, long ago, but that Zitao trusted them with his life. Xianhua had his sword out, but it hung down by his side. His face was smeared with dirt, and a dark smudge of red was apparent through the cloth they'd used to hastily bind the damage from when an enemy shield had caught him off guard. He wondered how much Zitao had told them about the truth behind this mission, and whether or not they'd had any personal investment in it, or had come along, simply out of some sort of duty, or perhaps alliegance.

Sure that Zitao was in good hands - or at least in hands that would keep him from charging forward recklessly and being turned into a pincushion, Yixing stepped forward.

"You have us surrounded." He spoke loudly, hoping his voice would project. He did not usually have to speak loudly. They had been caught at the base of a hill, and he had to admit that it did make for a striking image - the two men on horses, both tall, both dressed in full armour. It meant that they had been well aware that they had been coming, both the when and the where. Given how few people had been privy to that information... If - _if_ \- they got out of this alive, he was going to have a few words with their king about reshuffling his cabinet. The sun was in his eyes - he couldn't see their faces, but perhaps that was for the best. Something twisted in his chest, some anger, some bile, some sort of heartache for something that could never again be repaired.

"What do you want?"

"To kill us, of course."

Zitao. Someone shushed him before Yixing turned. He really did not need Zitao to get himself killed right now. He really did not need that.

"I don't want to kill you."

The voice, this particular voice, wrenched through his chest, more sharp, more bitter, more biting than the rend in his shoulder, than the wound in his side. Yixing swallowed, shut his eyes, just for a moment. Oriented himself in the darkness.

"You're not going to let us go."

Statement, not question. A faint nod from the shadow. Yixing understands.

"Your kingdom is falling," he says. "You would be welcomed here, Yixing." His name. Yixing doesn't know if he wants to hear his name, not right now. "The era of the Xu kingdom is over, and has been over for a while. Why would you stay and burn with it."

Yixing swallowed again, hard, trying to swallow down his heart, to swallow down the fragments of his soul that threatened to disentangle from his sense of self.

"He's your brother," he said. Too quiet to be heard. "He was your _brother_."

A sharp bark of laughter - Zitao, again. "I'd rather _die_ than join you."

No, please don't die. Dying was bad. Dying was very bad. Yixing did not want Zitao to die. So far, none of them were dead. This was a good thing. There were some injuries - many injuries - some more life threatening than others. He was particularly worried about how Xianhua's head wound had yet to stop bleeding. He knew men who had bled to death like that.

"You know Yifan, we should just let him have what he wants and be done with it," the man beside him drawled. Yixing twitched, his hand straying for his blade. Zitao might wear his heart on his sleeve and Yixing might be far from having anger issues, but even the strongest bowstring had its limit, and this one was fraying thin. They hold a quick conference, too quiet to hear. Yixing, not for the first time, takes in the soldiers surrounding them. He wonders how many of them had once fought for their side. Sometimes living was more important than allegiances, and he could scarce blame them. But to choose where your sword fell was one thing. To turn your sword on those who had once trusted you most - that was another altogether.

"Enough."

Loud, authoratative - it takes him a moment to realise that he is the one who spoke. A lull, a moment of silence, a world of attention. Slowly, carefully, he reached for his belt and loosened it, undid it, until it fell sword and all.

"Yixing!"

He ignored Zitao's shout, and was thankful the others had the sense to not do what Zitao was doing. He took a step forward, holding his hands out, empty.

"Enough," he said again. "If you spare them, I'll surrender. You wouldn't kill them. You _can't_ kill them."

He hoped that his words would be enough, if nothing else. Behind him, he could hear Zitao yelling, angrily. Someone else murmur that he shouldn't be doing this. But at the end of the day, there was only so much a barely competent leader could do, and if it was to offer up his own head, then so be it. The sun was setting now, enough that it no longer pierced his eyes, blinding his vision. The black spots were clearing so that despite the distance, he could just make out the outlines of a face he had once known well, and was now a stranger. He hoped that he was not wrong when the expression he saw seemed pained, conflicted. He hoped that the person he had once trusted was not entirely a lie. He hoped that heaven had not planned a death for them all here, and that if it had, he hoped that whatever he did, would allow more of them to escape that fate than succumb.

And, he hoped:

"Tao'er, remember, you said today would be alright?" Yixing said this quietly. His eyes were trained on the two mounted figures who were galloping down the hill. He hoped that Zitao would not do anything rash. He had never called Zitao by his childhood name. The two of them had never been close. But right now, he needed him to listen. He needed him to be the prince he was. "Keep believing that it will be."

That same pang of guilt - the one where Zitao couldn't have known the circumstances, couldn't have known this outcome - but the thundering of hooves shook through the ground, and Yixing banished it to the same place he had sealed away the memory of the previous night. It had been a mere number of days, since the last time he had seen Yifan, yet it already felt like an eternity ago. Not yet a single cycle of the moon, but from the way he looked into his eyes and saw only a stranger, it could have been ten moons ago. Twenty moons ago.

Yixing had once knelt in fealty to the old king, and then he had knelt in fealty to the old king's son. Now, he knelt in surrender to another one of his sons, and could only hope that history - the same history that had gone up like smoke between them - would stop the sharp edge of a blade from severing his neck.

As the sound of metal whistled through the air, he felt that hope melting away.

He really, really didn't want to die.

All he wanted, right now, was to—

-

"Lord, we've received a messenger."

Lu Han looked up from his pacing. One of the many advisors left over from his father's reign stood bowing in the entry way, a scroll between his hands. Behind him, Jinxiao was wringing her hands nervously, explaining in gestures that she hadn't been able to stop him. Lu Han understood. He'd asked not to be disturbed, but what power did a palace maid have in the face of an official?

He stepped forward and snatched it from his hands, breaking the seal and shaking it open without a word. He scanned the neatly penned letter, the request for surrender - the declaration, really. And at the end of it: _we are also overjoyed that one of Yifan's close friends has decided to join us, and he hopes that you consider doing the same._

Lu Han slammed it closed, a slow anger burning in his throat.

"When did this come?" he demanded. "Who's seen this? Why wasn't this taken to me immediately?"

The old man bowed. "Lord, this would've been brought to you directly had we known where you were." An admonishment, one that Lu Han did not care to hear, not right now.

"When? How long ago?"

A pause. "An hour." He could not lie. Did not dare to lie.

Lu Han swore, something that should never have fallen from the lips of someone like him. His hand shook as he pointed to the door.

"Out," he said. "Get out of my sight _now_."

Close friends. The wording had said close friends. He'd resumed his pacing, the scroll kicked aside. Close friends. If it had been Zitao, no doubt it would have been worded differently. No, close friend could only refer to one person.

As if - _as if_ \- Lu Han would believe that Yixing had joined him of his own will. As if he would believe that Yixing had chosen to abandon him, just like _he_ had.

As if he would _ever_ believe Yixing would want for him to give up or surrender.

As fucking if.

-

The cell was cold. Dark. Deep undergound. It may have been the tail end of summer, but none of summer's warmth reached through the stones. He hugged his legs to his chest, suddenly wishing that he hadn't been left here alone, hadn't been given the 'privilege', considering his rank. He missed Shixun. He missed Zhongren. He missed Dalong and Xiaolong and he missed Jia and Fei and Zhou Mi and everyone else.

He hated him.

He hated him more than he had ever hated anyone, more than he ever thought he could hate anyone.

 _Keep believing that it will be_.

Yixing's last words to him, and Zitao clung to them. Before the day had started - no, before this day had ended, he'd had good reason to believe that it would be. It could still be alright - Yixing was right. He didn't know if he could believe, however. Especially when, the moment Yifan showed his face, Zitao was going to punch him so hard that his nose broke.

He wondered at the time. How many hours had it been? How long had passed since he'd walked through a door he did not expect to open anytime soon? A faint bud of hope yet fluttered in his chest, but Zitao knew it woud fade and wilt by the minute.

With nothing to accompany him but the empty echo of his voice against four stone walls, Zitao's mind began to drift of its own accord.

Eight days ago, reports that the second prince had simply vanished shook the palace. Six days ago, news of his betrayal. The day is a blur. He knows Lu Han had come to talk to him, but he'd yelled at him until he left and hadn't felt any better when he had been left alone. He knows Shixun had snuck in to see him, but a full day had passed before the world returns to him. Four days ago - news of his whereabouts, not yet deep behind enemy lines. Three days ago, the report that he had become untouchable. And then, hope beyond hope, he'd been allowed to join the group sent to retrieve him.

One winter, the snow had been so deep that travel even across the courtyard had been tedious. For a week, while the storm raged and waned and it had been far easier to have simple meals of porridge, Zitao had extracted the tale of the monkey king, of fabled lovers forever honoured by the trees which stood by their graves, of the white snake lady, of everyone that Zitao had heard of only once, and then he'd asked for more, for ones he didn't know, for ones he wasn't suppose to know. That winter had been unusually cold, unusually harsh, but all of Zitao's memories are warm, protected, and strong.

The war never ceased even once in Zitao's lifetime, but there had been years where the fighting diminished in ferocity, and borders grew hazy and wide. There was a trip to the mountains - a hunting trip. There had been a lake, and there had been food, and the peaches had been so sweet it was as if he had become immortal and the summer would last forever. They must have hunted something, but he no longer remembers what. It hadn't seemed important at the time, but now Zitao wonders why that detail had slipped through the cracks of memory.

He wanders through the hallways of springs and summers, of lessons and dinners and all the small things that could make one evening magical and another abhorred. The corners form a maze, and when there is a sound at the door, it takes him several false turns before he surfaces in the present, still shaking off the tendrils of the past.

A sliver of light blinds him. He throws an arm across his face, but his eyes have already had the white hot image of nothingness seared across them. He curses under his breath - a word is murmured, a door shut, and Zitao is left face to face with the man he had set out to kill.

His fingers tighten into a fist, his lip curls back in a snarl -

He bursts into tears.

Zitao has cried before. His favourite toy, lost. His pet dog, dead. A thousand tiny things of no final consequence but at the moment had seemed like a bend that could never be corrected. His mother, dead.

These are tears of anger, of frustration, of a choking burn with a vice grip about his chest, of paralyzing chains sneaking heavy down his rms, his legs. They explode, burs with resentment, with hatred, with love.

It is now that Zitao recognizes a truth he will carry with him for the rest of his life: he is not a person who can kill his brother, no matter who that brother is.

"I... Sorry, Tao'er. I really-"

"You're not sorry! If you really were sorry, you wouldn't have done this in the first place! You'd put things back to how they were! You're sorry? You think you can do something with just your 'sorry'? If things could - don't touch me!"

_crack._

The sound of bone giving way to the determination of a fist. The look of surprise, resignation. A redirection of a desire to kill, to a desire to break. But before he lands his third blow, the door to the cell slams open and Zitao finds himself wrestled to the ground, arms pinned behind his head.

Yifan gets to his feet, slowly, his eyes never straying once from his own. As if he were blameless. As if yet again, Zitao had done something silly to get himself in trouble, and he was here to get him out.

Zitao spits at his feet. He gets kicked in the face for his efforts.

"Be gentle," he hears. And then he is gone. Hopefully only after he heard Zitao call him the coward he was, and a disgrace to all his ancestors.

-

The country here is full of hills, and a rider on the horizon will appear and vanishe at will, like a small twig boat tossed through a lake. It is with the morning sun that this particular rider rises over a crest, dropping against the slope before making the final climb. Behind him trails another, though their pace flags. The rider has been running hard, the horse's flanks heaving, the both of them covered in sweat and dust. The pair thunder up to the city walls, bearing the flag of a messenger and a message most urgent, to be delivered to the fourth prince, and failing his presence, then directly to the king and only to him. If, at the moment they were arguing by the gates in tone more than words, the king had not been pacing along the city edges dressed in common clothes, the story of this rider and his companion, who only now began the trot up the hill, may have ended far differently. But Lu Han had been out all night, and chancing upon the commotion amidst the pre dawn stillness, he turned his steps briskly towards the gate. And, had Lu Han not spoken to Zitao some days prior, he may not have known the name on the flag, nor would the faintest light creep through the dread he'd found himself submerged in.

"For heaven's sake, let him in," he growled. "Your king commands it."

More commotion, more confusion, who was this commoner who could make such imperial commands, but an official, drawn by the noise as Lu Han had been moments earlier, vouched for the king's identity and was believed, much to Lu Han's snarling indignation.

"Friend," the rider says, as he dismounts and hands Lu Han the scroll. He nods at his approaching companion. "We....friends."

Lu Han nods.

"We will talk when we return" he says, knowing full well the details of his words will be missed. Zitao had been the one who summered in the provinces. Lu Han had been too busy with history and tactics to learn the languages that did not concern him. As they wait, he summons a coach, and instructs for the two horses to be stabled and cared for. He itches to open the message, but prudence calls for at least the security of a coach.

A few days ago: "I...have friends," Zitao had said. He'd been waiting in the hall when Lu Han had returned to his chambers that night, on his feet and pacing, half nervous, half with too much energy to be contained. Lu Han had frowned and gestured for him to sit, but Zitao had only shaken his head. "You remember Junmian," Zitao hedges. Lu Han does not remember - Zitao reminds him about the times he'd stayed within the palace of the Jin kingdom. "He might be coming to visit."

"Why?" Lu Han had asked.

"It's important," Zitao had said. "It's really, really, important."

And so, as they wait for the coach and the second rider, Lu Han queries: "Junmian?"

The kid shakes his head, and points to himself. "Yuanzhi," he says, haltingly. And then, as horse and rider lumber slowly through the gates, he gestures, indicating that it was the other who Lu Han had been asking after. They are both dressed in light armour, but at a glance, Lu Han can see that this second arrival is dressed finer, sharper. His eyes take in the quality of the workmanship, the signature of the blade, and slowly, things click into place.

"Really important, huh." That Zitao...

The letter, written in Zitao's own flourishing hand, confirms what Lu Han had pieced together. That the fourth prince had indeed sent away for help, that Junmian - "Joonmyun," he's corrected helpfully - bears a proposal, and that he, Lu Han, the current king of the Xu kingdom, would be well advised to accept it. Or, as Zitao put it, he must, because Zitao may not have been the scholar, but he too could tell that their days were numbered if they did not receive outside help.

"And what," Lu Han says slowly, as he places the letter down on his lap, "can the kingdom of Xu give that would tempt a young prince like yourself so far from home."

He chooses his words carefully and speaks softly. This is not a meeting to be overheard - perhaps, here, with their words hidden from the outside by the steady rhythm of hooves, is unintentionally ideal. He knows even before the deed is done, that there will be those who say that he is selling out the country, what little of it is left. He knows before the foreign prince speaks that what he will demand will not be light, that it will not be easy to give. Yet he also knows that whatever is demanded, must be given. That whatever happens, this will be a debt that can never be repayed or forgiven, a price that will never leave. He understands Zitao's nervousness, his excitement, the flightful fear Lu Han remembers had emanated from his very soul. How must he have felt when he first sat down to pen that letter, how must he have felt when the idea first passed his mind, knowing full well that there was no assistance that could be freely given nor freely taken. Knowing what this would mean for Lu Han, for him, for them all.

But Junmian's only response is to smile and incline his head. Lu Han frowns. "You must want something," he presses.

"Is it bad to want to help a friend?" Junmian replies, still smiling. "Perhaps that is something to be discussed after we've sorted out your problem."

There is something about Junmian's smile that leaves Lu Han uneasy, but he says nothing. Beside Junmian, Yuanzhi is silent, a soft smile on his face that belies his nods of understanding. The remainder of the ride is silent, leaving Lu Han to muse in solitude. There is not much to muse over. Instead, his mind chooses to linger on whatever would the previously departed king say, had he known they were being reduced to begging for help from such a provincial warlord. It is only as they near the gates that Lu Han speaks:

"The throne is mine, and ours," he says, as they near the gates, "but were there other assistance we could offer, it is ours to give."

Junmian, when Lu Han looks up, for once is not smiling. ""I am here only on Zitao's request, and the only thing I wish for is for you to accept our aid," he says firmly. He pauses, and his lips quirk. "Zitao did say you could be stubborn."

Suddenly, the tightness that had clung so desperately to his chest loosens it's grip around his soul, and Lu Han is caught unsuspecting by the laughter that rips from within him. "Stubborn!" he barks, although a strange feeling grips at his chest. "He's one to talk."

Yuanzhi laughs suddenly, catching if not the words then the gist, and Junmian chuckles as well, before falling somber, waiting for Lu Han's reply. As quickly as the vice had gripped his chest, it seems to loosen it's hold on his soul, and, for the first time, he allows himself to hope.

"Thank you," he says, "thank you, for coming."

"We haven't done anything yet," Junmian says, but Lu Han shakes his head.

"Please," he says, "I'm not asking as a king, but please, bring him back. Bring them back."

"I'm not sure I understand." Junmian's face is one of pleasant confusion, and Lu Han swallows. How much had Zitao relayed? How much could he have, given how little he dared to send such distances? How much did he trust his friends to assist even without knowing the full story?

"The situation has changed," Lu Han finally says. And, swallowing the snake that threatens to crush his ribs, he faces a stranger and in the next breath, trusts him with what he knows, with his brother, with his friend, and with the man who he had once considered as both.


	3. interlude

All he is aware of is the haze of pain that envelops him like a warm bath, only far less pleasant but no less penetrating. It is all he can remain aware of. His limbs are attached, he still has his eyes, and he's fairly sure that he still has all his fingers, although he's not sure about the degree to which those are intact. His head throbs, and in his tongue lies the inescapable taste of blood and vomit. All in all, it could be worse, but he's not sure how. Or if he could handle it being much worse. He's lost track of how many times he's said no, or I don't know. Giving answers to questions he would never answer even if or when he knew the answer. He suspects that they are running short of patience, wonders what they want from him that the traitor could not have given. Wonders what the traitor told them he could give, when he'd said he would never join them—that his loyalty lay to Lu Han only, to Zitao, failing that, and to whatever sons or daughters they might produce. He would die before betraying them, he remembered saying, and then not much more after that.

The door creaks ajar, and Yixing forces his eyes open, ignoring the blinding pain from the sudden light.

"You would be better off killing me," he says. His voice scratches at his throat, hurts.

"Why are you doing this!?"

The voice that Yixing hears now, is one he has not heard in what seems to be an eternity. One he had not hoped to hear again. Stop being so dramatic, he scolds himself. You must look so pathetic, pull yourself together, what must he think?

He rouses himself, or he attempts to. It's difficult, when his wrists are bound to either side of the frame, and his legs are too weak to stand on. His eyes, he finds, are indeed functional, but what he sees is no cause for joy.

"This is not what we agreed on." He growls, struggles uselessly to his feet, as if in his state he could do anything, help in any way. What a mess they are, what a pair.

Zitao has clearly been beaten, one eye swollen shut. His arms are bound behind his back, and as much as he tries to hide it, he struggles to remain on his feet. The one concession is the broken nose on the one who stands behind Zitao, and Yixing allows himself a grim moment of satisfaction at that - before his own legs give out under him and he collapses heavily to his knees.

"Don't," Yixing warns Zitao preemptively. The searing pain in one leg suggests a break, but Yixing puts it out of his mind. Instead, he looks up to meet Yifan's eyes.

"He is your brother," he says. "What would your mother think if she knew?"

Yifan shifts, perhaps in discomfort. He nods at the enemy soldiers, tells them to wait outside. Zitao looks both ready to murder and ready to keel over, and Yixing's chest twinges in sympathy. He cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a brother so many times, had he had one. (He cannot imagine losing Lu Han, and he is perhaps the closest he has to one, now.)

The door closes, and the three of them, the two princes of Xu and him, once friend to one and now friend to the other, they are left alone. Yifan brings with him a light, and this he hangs by the door. It leaves their faces in shadow, and Yixing blinks once, twice, before he realises what little good sight can do him in such a situation.

A long moment of silence passes, Yixing aware of their eyes on him, and aware of himself, awaiting an answer to a question he has yet to ask. Finally: "why is he here?" He means Zitao, of course. Zitao opens his mouth to speak, but then shuts it again, and looks away. Yet even so, he is the first to respond.

"What do you think?" he mumbles. "Everything he does is for his own gain."

"I brought you to see him!" Yifan snaps. Something flashes in his eyes, and Yixing has to bite his tongue to retort that if it were not for him, they would still be seeing each other of their own free will.

"And that's why you had him beaten?" Yixing bites out instead. "I surrendered to you my body, not my conscience, although I understand you may be unclear on where such boundaries lie."

Yifan's eyes narrow. "He brought it on himself."

Yixing thinks of Yifan's nose, and lets loose a harsh bark of laughter.

"Zitao? The boy who would walk around ants instead of over them? I wonder who brought what on who."

"I only came to talk," Yifan says, and this time, Zitao is the one who snorts incredulously, before near doubling over in pain.

It does not go unnoticed by either of them, but whereas Yixing can only bare his teeth, Yifan catches his younger brother and hauls him upright, earning him an uncharacteristic whimper of pain. The two of them trade a look, one that Yixing cannot read and leaves him to wonder what else he has misread over the years.

"Then why is he here?" Yixing repeats. He still means Zitao, but now, it takes on a different sort of tone. "Why must he be here?"

They did not near grow up together for naught, and despite Zitao's protests, Yifan calls in the guards, sends him away. The two of them remain, alone for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, and something palpable seems to shatter.

Yixing lets his eyes fall shut, lets the pain he has been holding back filter back through his chest, his limbs, the very core of his bones. The pain replaces the anger, neither of which allow him to think clearly, but Yixing has never worked well with anger. He has learned how to deal with pain.

"You're wondering why I did what I did."

The voice floats through his own darkness.

"I don't need to wonder," Yixing says. "You always did resent him."

"I." A long pause. "An offer was made to him. As well."

"Have him give up his kingdom? Your kingdom?"

Laughter. "It belonged to neither of us at the time."

From that long ago? Yixing frowns, or would frown, if it did not hurt as much as it did. There is a long cut running down the side of his face. The blood has finally begun to slow its flow, but the pain remains, and worsens each time he so much as twitches his jaw. Yet to speak without moving a muscle remains difficult. Yixing is good at enduring. He has always understood _ren_.

"But he didn't."

"And now he'll die for it."

No. The protest screams through him silently, yet outwardly, Yixing remains strangely calm, quiet, as if his mouth, his throat, his tongue, have suddenly refused to follow his failed command. Lu Han will _not_ die for it. He cannot die for it. But at the same time, he knows that it is something beyond his control, beyond his command. For a brief, sickening moment, he sees Lu Han crumpled on the floor, he sees Yifan with the royal jade seal, and he sees it as if it were real. If he could close his eyes to it, he would, but his eyes are already closed, and there is no darkness to retreat into.

"Our soldiers are brave," Yixing says instead. He does not mention that they have grown few. He does not needed to. 

His shoulders ache, and it is an almost comforting, familiar sort of pain. It is easier to focus on the ache than the pain that has been slowly awakening, flaring, making itself known in a thousand iterations. He has heard of the pain of childbirth, and how it is said that it is one no man can know, but he wonders if what he feels now may come close.

"This is not worth your life."

"My life is not worth my loyalty."

"You only have one life."

"Then I would live it well with my conscience free."

"Then, if not for yourself, do not let me live with your life on my conscience."

"Pei! You should have killed me back there. Now you will have both my life and what you've put me through on your conscience." 

He can sense, if not hear, Yifan shuffle. Perhaps, uncomfortably.

"You left me with little choice."

"I left you with your brother, but it seems like you've turned him into a hostage to guarantee my behaviour."

A long pause. Exhaustion creeps over him, or perhaps, just darkness. He forces his eyes open, again, but again, can see nothing. 

"Or it could be the other way around," Yifan says.

Yixing gives up on keeping his eyes from closing. Perhaps he is telling the truth. If Xu were to fall... perhaps it would be wiser for Zitao to remain here, than to forfeit his life as one of His Majesty's relatives.

"Is that why I've been refused poison?" Yixing asks quietly.

"You are a fool if you think you're allowed to die." This is spoken with more anger than Yixing would expect, and Yixing laughs.

He is so, so tired.

"The bigger fool is the one who clings to life," he says. There is little left to hold him up, and he slumps in his restraints. "Now go. I have nothing to say to you."

He thinks he hears Yifan ask him to reconsider his life, but he also thinks he hears Yifan apologise, but he also thinks that these few weeks have been only a dream.


	4. chapter 3

"I don't see why we can't enter through here, and advance on the city directly."

"It isn't a question of can or can't," Junmian says, "but it's one of efficiency."

Lu Han kneaded his temples. They've been poring over the map and discussing their plan going forward for the better part of the morning, and Lu Han is no strategist. He simply doesn't understand why directing near half of their troops towards Lingyao will benefit Yixing's party still in Yuhu.

"There is no guarantee there is anything left there," Junmian had said clinically, deftly ignoring Lu Han's curses and redirecting his plan.

Junmian has the luxury to think in that way. Lu Han doesn't.

"Which is why Xu is falling," Junmian says. He returns to the map, pointing at a particularly hilly bit.

"But if you take this pass, regardless of the outcome in Yuhu, you will have gained an important vantage."

"You think we haven't tried that?" Lu Han glowers. "We lost nearly a thousand men."

"You have, we haven't," Junmian pushes on smoothly. "Now of the ten thousand, I will lead two thirds through to Lingyao, where gods willing, we will take the pass and the city in one stroke. Once that is done, Yuanzhi will lead the remaining beyond to Yuhe, where your troops will join him."

"And if you fail?"

"Then we will simply have to do it your way."

Lu Han considers this. In many ways, he agreed with what Junmian had proposed, but he'd long found that simple agreement was the worst way to develop any sort of strategy, never mind a full fledged battle plan. There were other aspects to it as well, however. For example, allowing Junmian to take Lingyao. That meant that he was, in effect, ceding the pass and city to the country of Jin. Of course, he understood that given the distance between their two countries, there would be no difference in practicality, but it would raise the debt which must one day be repaid. Then there was the matter of failure. If Junmian succeeded, then attacking Yuhu from two points would be ideal. However, if he were to fail, as Lu Han had failed before, then their own forces would be weakened while the Wei army would have suffered few direct losses in terms of the defence of Yuhu. Furthermore, as Yuhu had once been one of the major cities of Xu, the attack must be subtle, and cause as little damage as possible. Lu Han knew both from study and experience that the agreement of the people was crucial for holding government. Junmian had agreed that it was likely Yixing and his men were being held in the manor prison, and that a frontal attack could be dangerous to their safety, but they had little choice. Unfortunately, men who could vault walls and hide like shadows at night were not as common as the legends would make them seem, so they would have to do this the old fashioned way. Or, as Junmian put it, Lu Han's way.

Unfortunately, Lu Han's way seemed more and more like simply ramming open the door, but what could they do. Lu Han nods once to himself, and taps the table with his fingers. He looks up and meets Junmian's eyes.

"I agree. We'll do as you say."

"You will?" Junmian's face lights up, like a child watching candy being pulled, and Lu Han stares for a full second before he shakes his head in amusement. So Junmian had been serious when he'd said that this was only a suggestion, had he. But whereas Lu Han was used to being obeyed, he supposes that as the fourth prince, Junmian's experience was far different from his own.

Lu Han sighs and steps away from the table, slipping hands into sleeves.

"It is a sound plan," he cedes. "As sound a plan as we may have."

They find Yuanzhi in the courtyard by Zitao's apartments, surrounded by a trio of dogs. He looks up when they approach, and Lu Han is struck by a sudden pang of guilt for how young he seems. No younger than Zitao, he knows, and by all rights they were both grown men, yet there was some part of him that couldn't help but wonder if they could've flourished further in more peaceful times. Lu Han learns that they belong not to Zitao - he doesn't remember the fourth prince being much of a dog person - but to some kid called Kai. Lu Han doesn't remember him, but there's much he doesn't remember from not having paid notice to, although when he's told that his name is also Zhongren, a small notion seems to trickle into his sea of memory.

The country here is rough, although not harsh. Nonetheless, to venture through it blind and unfamiliar would do them no good, nor would bringing a fight to the darkness. It is decided that Junmian will arrive at the pass a little prior to dawn, using the night to cover the distance. A number of Xu soldiers would accompany them, as guides, however, the main complement would be lead by--

"Are you mad? You would deliver yourself into their jaws without a second thought when your men are fighting for you to remain safe?" Junmian stops and gapes at him.

Lu Han frowns. "If they believe I've surrendered, their guard will drop and--"

"Forgive me, my lord, but that is the dumbest thing I have heard yet," Junmian says flatly. "You have no heir, the next in line to the throne is either held prisoner or dead, and the one with the best claim has already declared his alliance with the enemy. You might as well deliver your country to them on a silver plate."

Lu Han smiles, although he is quite sure it does not reach his eyes.

"If we lose here, I have nothing left to live for."

He's taken aback when he's grabbed suddenly by the shoulders, and shaken hard, before Junmian seems to realise what he's doing and he steps back. Lu Han's mouth drops open in surprise - as does Yuanzhi's.

"You are mad, you..." Junmian mumbles, shakes his head. "That isn't for you to decide."

But Lu Han pursed his lips. Who would mind whether he lived or died, with both family and friends gone? How would he live, with both Yixing and Zitao gone? It wasn't something he wanted to think about. It wasn't something he could think about.

No, he was going. He was king, after all. He at least had that much power to decide.

Perhaps some scholars would name it inauspicious to depart when the sun begins to fall, but Lu Han notes that the stars are rising. They see Junmian off mid-afternoon, a messenger and guide already sent ahead to prepare the troops and to relay to the officers what they would need to know. There is little wind and the sun hangs mid-sky, with few clouds to dim its late summer beams. Lu Han knows little about what is auspicious, but he supposes that a clear sky shouldn't count against their favour. Yuanzhi follows as well, with Zhongren's puppies trailing after him, unable to understand why their humans keep abandoning them again and again.

They will leave in the middle of the night, but their soldiers are well versed in the terrain, and could have run the distance to Yuhu blind and as a child. Lu Han's heart pounds as he calmly delivers the order that in order to oversee this operation safely, he would like several of the court officials to accompany them. He sees the panic, the terror, and in a vindicative moment of revenge, thinks that they deserve to die. He smiles sweetly at Yixing's uncle, and tells him that he thinks his age and experience would serve better at court. He does not tell them that he will be riding with them - hidden, at the back, among the other soldiers, ceding the leadership to Xiumin - only that he will be absent a while, in order to see this through properly, but he was reachable at a moment's notice. Let them think he was watching, let them think he knew all - well, he did, but that was beside the point. ANYWAY the point was Lu Han wouldn't really have a clue what was going on at court but he'd have to trust that most of the court was still trustworthy, because he was about to be unreachable for at least a day, and, if it all did succeed, he really did want to have a country to come back to rule.

-

There are words that come to mind. He is angry. He is sad. He is upset, furious, bewildered, numb. He is surrounded by cheer making, by celebration, by food and by wine. The noise engulfs him, surrounds him, swallows him. He allows it to. He wishes it would consume him whole, wishes that it could give some feeling to the empty dullness in his chest, wishes that he could replace it with the pain that he steadfastly banishes from his legs, his face, his back. He hates him. He hates them all. He hates all of them. Hate, hate, hate, hate - but no matter how much he he repeats the words to himself, he cannot seem to stoke inside himself the cold fury of hate. He is no stranger to it, he had lived it, near reveled in it, embraced it mere hours, days ago. Yet now, now he could not seem to summon it, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he needed it.

Zitao watched, but it was as if he could not understand what he saw in front of him. No, that wasn't quite it either. It wasn't that he could not understand, it was that he would not understand. There was a distinction there, one that he knew, one that he understood, but it didn't fit, it didn't work, nothing seemed to make sense. There were no words that he could bring to mind, no words that he could use to describe the situation. How many situations had been parsed neatly into lines and verse, yet here he was with as many words at his disposal and none that he could shape.

Perhaps, if he could borrow words - but no lines come to mind, nothing that could adequately capture the despair, the lack of despair, this darkness amidst blazing light, this light so inadequate when all he wished for was to sink into darkness.

There is a yell, a scream, something out of the ordinary. It rouses him, somewhat, and Zitao blinks, unsure of what it means when a man falls in front of him, his neck ringed with red. With blood.

Two more fall, quickly. They are drunk. It is easy to kill a man when he is drunk.

Zitao watches, unsure. He recognises them, these strangers - knows that it is Fei who dances fast and methodical with her blade, knows that it is Jia who appears near in front of him.

Perhaps, he muses, he is dead, already. Perhaps this is another dream, a kinder one, because he has not been all bad. Perhaps karma has seen fit to reward him, in this manner, at least.

"One more step and he dies!"

Or not.

Zitao yelps as he's hauled roughly upright, the knife cutting into the skin at the base of his neck. He blinks, the world suddenly coming back in full colour in front of him. The banquet room is in chaos, his arms are still bound roughly behind him, he lashes out, instinctively, only to drive the edge dangerously close to his throat, Jia stands, uncertain, there, Yifan, telling someone to drop him, that no one uses him as a hostage except for him.

Zitao blinks - he hadn't known that Yifan had cared, but then the knife is removed from his neck, pointed at Yifan --

and before his eyes can shut again, Zitao is yanked away, pulled aside, and he rolls, his body on fire as the two of them come to a stop, Jia quickly getting to her feet.

"You're alright!?" Zitao struggles to sit up.

Jia nods grimly, slashing at the ropes that hold Zitao prisoner. He rubs at his arms, his wrists, his legs, wincing when he inadvertently leans against his knee.

"That's what I need to ask you," she says, but then there is a blade with a thirsting for blood, and their breath is better saved for moving. It is a soldier, now, one that Zitao suspects was originally of Xu, but there isn't time to contemplate it when every moment he takes to scrabble to safety raises bile in his throat and stars in his eyes. The alarm has been raised, and the fighting takes on a degree of earnestness, soldiers against soldiers, although Zitao worries, because although he sees the twins fighting back to back, they are but two against ten times their number.

Zitao feels naked, unarmed. He grasps for a fallen blade, but drops it with a gasp when his fingers refuse to close around the hilt without screaming in protest. Jia gives him a single look, and then gestures towards a corner, where the fighting is the lightest. He nods, and allows her to help him hobble over, allows her to drop him, twice, when she needed a better range of movement to strike down an assailant. It is Zhou Mi who meets them there, who looks him over, and sits him against a wall.

"Where is the minister?" Zhou Mi asks urgently. "Where is Yixing?"

Ah.

And there it was.

Zitao opens his mouth, lets his head fall back.

"Dead," he says.

"What do you mean he's--"

"He's dead," Zitao repeats.

His eyes fall shut, and he doesn't open them.

There it was. The words, he was looking for.

He was dead.

Above him, in front of him, they trade words, quick, rushed, too quiet for him to catch. When he blinks, Jia is gone, and only Zhou Mi is there.

"Stay here," Zhou Mi instructs, turns to rejoin the fray.

Zitao shakes his head. "Let me fight," he says. Pleads.

Yixing was dead. He was alive. He had to be alive.

Zhou Mi snorts, and places a heavy hand on his shoulder. "No, stay down before you trip and split your skull," he says. Zitao is reminded suddenly, of the blood soaked cloths that had wrapped Xianhua's head, but before he gets a chance to ask, Zhou Mi is gone, and at the same time, a cry is raised that the city is under attack.

Part of him bristles at the insult as soldiers here and there begin to drop their weapons, flee, when faced with the prospect of facing their former comrades - did they not count him as one of their comrades - but, there, again, that glimmer of hope.

A hope that had come too late, and Zitao, for the second time in these few short hours, days, feels the prickling of tears in his eyes.

-

When the sun rises, a new day begins. When the sun falls, a day has ended.

But the moon waxes and wanes on a schedule of its own, rises and falls with days dictated not by the sun, but by the earth, surrounded by a veil more fiercely studded with gems than the most elaborate cloak embroidered by human hands. Yet beauty dictates not necessity, and what is it to the earth where the moon falls, what is it to the sun when the earth wanes?

What was life or death to the heavens, when death to them was the same as the blink of an eye, while mankind struggled helpless in the face of heaven's careless whims?

This is the thought that lingers as Lu Han slows his frantic chase, knowing full well that he might as well be chasing an empty dream, or perhaps that it was the dream which chased him. The heavy air of blood and pain permeates the halls, mixes with moans, with the pleading of the dying. This, Lu Han pays no mind of, except to skirt where the floor is slick with darkness, having already slipped and fallen, more than once. He is half mindful of his vulnerability, his lack of armour, his lack of blade. All that had been forgotten, stripped away and left where it had fallen. It is a weight he cannot, at this moment bear.

He was not a good king, he could never have made a good king. Yet a foolish man had once told him that one could never tell with these things. No, there was so much that one could never tell about.

The fighting had been fierce, but to Lu Han, it had been a blur. He recalls riding behind an officer, one who'd been truly proud to have risen to the occasion, one who'd died proud. He recalls that the man who'd stricken him down had been struck down in turn, and Lu Han recalls that he had not been true to his word to remain aloof from the fighting, and he recalls rending flesh with steel. It had been a blur, but even a blur can linger in its emotions.

He does not, however, recall who it had been who had told him that they had seen the fourth prince in the hall. He does not even recall how he managed to arrive here, does not recall how he knew in which ways the path twisted.

Nor will he recall that burning flash of relief when he sees Zitao - hurt, badly hurt - alive, because in the next second, or perhaps minute, or perhaps several long minutes in which he'd realised with sickening dread as he'd grabbed Zitao by the shoulders, barely noticing the hurt flashing across the prince's face that despite the vaguely familiar faces which surround them, there was one missing:

"He's dead. Yixing's dead."

he will only be able to recall the wave of darkness, the heavy clouds which washed over him like a lake in winter, like a mudslide extinguishing the flicker of light he'd been trying so hard to ignore, had been trying so hard to keep lit.

"What do you mean...." Lu Han swallows, his mouth, lips dry. His voice does not seem his own. Zitao looks away, blinks. Unknowingly, Lu Han echoes the past. To Zitao, it is as if it is the same moment, as if the moment itself has been repeated, as if he had never left that moment. "What do you mean, he's dead?"

When he speaks, Zitao's voice is flat. He relays what he had seen, as if it were of no consequence, as if reciting a history lesson he'd been unwilling to learn. He stumbles, a few times, changing his words, changing the order. Begins with the way they were surprised, the brief scuffle, the way they had been quickly surrounded, tells Lu Han about his own rashness, and about Yixing's surrender. He tells him about the way that person had brought him to Yixing, briefly, how he's sure Yixing had said nothing, how eventually, they'd turned to him and Zitao acknowledges that he had never been good with holding his tongue.

"I told them...about you." Zitao trips over these words, swallows. "That he was your favourite, that he would never do anything they wanted. I...shouldn't have. I shouldn't have told them that, I shouldn't have told him that you weren't just friends," and Lu Han doesn't ask how Zitao knew, only shakes his head, tells him to continue.

But the dam that has been holding back so much will burst at the smallest crack. The wall which supports a tower needs only to lose a single brick before it collapses. A single seed can grow a bloom of distrust that can bring down a country. And so it is that Zitao, unable to hide behind the numbness he had not understood, is swallowed by the deluge that is the reality of being alive, and the reality of a guilt that cannot be placed nor defined.

"They cut his hair," he chokes out. "They beat him and then they cut his hair and they didn't stop until he was dead and then they threw him....his body..... into the latrine and...and then they...they....urin...pissed on....down..... but me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, it's my fault but _what about me_?"

In front of Lu Han, Zitao bursts into tears. Lu Han swallows. Blinks back the fire in his eyes, squeezes them shut, and clutches Zitao to him, noticing, realising, registering that Zitao was warm, solid, alive. That at the end of the day, Zitao was his younger brother. That Zitao had never once vied for the throne, had never once been anything but supportive, had never once been anything but filial, and loyal.

Yixing.... Lu Han pushes the thought away, for now. He pushes it away when he feels the dampness of Zitao's tears, and the dampness of Zitao's blood.

He can't think about Yixing, not right now.

(He'll fall apart.)

_Congratulations on getting married._

Was the brush still there? Had that been one of the last things to touch his hand? He should've held him back, when he'd had the chance.

Someone helps him to his feet, someone else surrounds Zitao, comforts Zitao. Lu Han watches, silently, as Zitao cries, smiles, laughs. Zitao will be alright. Zitao will live. Here is Yuanzhi, and Zitao's face lights up when he sees him, and Lu Han is glad, truly. He knows that the one who hangs back, unsure, is Shixun, because he remembers running into him again, and again in those days after Yifan had disappeared, left. He knows that these are Zitao's friends, and that he can trust them with his life, just like he knew he could always trust Yixing with his own.

Just like he could always trust that when he needed it most, there would be a hand to hold his, there would be fingers laced with his, there was someone to stand at his back.

"I need....to go to him." Lu Han speaks these words slowly, quietly, and the man beside him who had helped him stand is the only one who hears. Lu Han knows that the man is tall, and he pulls away from his support.

"We'll come with you, my lord," the man says, and he says it in a way that means well, but Lu Han shakes his head.

"I'd like some time alone," he says, and lingers only long enough to be given a destination.

Lu Han's hands are shaking. He stands outside the base of the latrine, alone. He can see his hands shaking, see the trembling in his fingers as he reaches for the door, yet at the same time, feels them to be as still as the surface of a lake. The dissonance unnerves him, just as the stench ought to, the putrid remains of human waste. He feels his legs weaken under him, and he grabs at the door, if only to keep himself from sinking to the ground. In despair. He can't sink to the ground in despair, he's a _king_.

He's alone, but there are people watching, there are always people watching, and he pushes the door open. He puts one foot in front of the other, does not run to the limp, human sized bundle in the corner, does not trip, fall, wipe the shit from his face as he half stumbles, crawls, and he definitely does not sob as he drags Yixing's body into his lap.

Still. So still.

There are no tears, Lu Han does not cry, he's too strong to cry. The clear droplets that trace tracks through the dirt and blood smudged over his face cannot be tears, the same ones that burn hot in his eyes as he bows his head, breath choked in his throat and chest crushed in the hand of heaven. He has held Yixing before, held him in his arms, has picked up him up, thrown him over his shoulders just as he once jumped from a roof into Yixing's arms (only for them both to tumble to the ground, they'd been so small and so young) but never before has he felt this heavy.

It's his fault. This is all his fault. He's the _king_ he should have known, he shouldn't have let them send Yixing away. He should've known that Yifan would've betrayed them, he should've known that Yixing would have sought him out, he should've made Yixing stay, made up some reason, some excuse, should've sent him away. Lu Han had been young, the first time Yixing had told him matter of factly, _I don't trust my uncle_ , and even back then Lu Han had been painfully ignorant of the intricacies of court politics while Yixing seemed to have a knack of deflection. A deflection that tended to land on himself, a deflection that would eventually lead to Lu Han claiming the royal seal as was his birth right.

Had he hurt? He must've hurt. It must've hurt so much.

He would give up the throne, now, if it meant that he could have Yixing back. He would give up the country, if it would help. If it meant that the gaping hole in his chest, this strange, boring pain, if all that would disappear and beside him he could have his friend laughing that stupid dumb laugh. If it meant he could say, in words, the things he can't even put together in his mind, and say them out loud. If he could only go back to that last night and forbid him from going, could call it all off.

Nothing in life mattered if one wasn't alive.

It was something Yixing had told him, before, when Lu Han had despaired over the state of the country. That the most important thing, he'd said in that slow, careful way of his, was that Lu Han was safe, and as long as Lu Han was safe, the country could be safe. Ten thousand zeroes without the one was only zero, and even a one with no zeroes behind it was greater than a million zeroes.

Why hadn't he thought of himself in the same way? Why was he so _stupid_ , how could he be such an idiot, how could he be so _dumb_ as to think the same didn't apply to him? Why, why, why hadn't he said no when Lu Han had told him he had to go? Why hadn't he struggled when they'd first laid hands on him, before Lu Han had panicked, had only managed to dismiss him for the time being, when he should've cleared Yixing from all blame. Why had he gone so easily?

 _I thought you were good at obeying orders_ , Lu Han had told him, not so long ago.

 _Not from you_ , Yixing had said, and he'd been vibrantly alive, but that hadn't been true. Yixing had been stupidly good at obeying orders, stubbornly good at it.

None of it had mattered.

Lu Han drags his sleeve across his eyes, swallows as he struggles for breath, blinks down in the darkness. Zitao had told him that they'd cut Yixing's hair, but it doesn't stop the dull burn of anger as he realises they'd gagged him with the same. He was going to find them. He was going to find them and do the same to each and every one of them. Zitao had been there, Zitao would know. He was going to--

"Lu...?"

The brightest light when faced with the sun fades into obscurity. The smallest star in the darkness can be as blinding as the sun.

So it is with the tiny pinpricks he sees, the glimmer in Yixing's barely open eyes, and this time, Lu Han does cry.

He cries until he feels his heart give out, cries as Yixing complains that Lu Han is making him wet, he cries until there is a hand on his shoulder because in between he'd yelled for someone to come, someone to help, and he cries until someone else pries him away, because, they murmur quietly, they suspect that the minister's ribs must be broken.

He cries, and he is a bad king, and he knows it.

"Don't you dare give up the country," he hears Yixing say as they carry him out, and Lu Han both laughs and cries, and thanks all the gods under heaven for the miracle he hadn't dared to pray for.


	5. epilogue

話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分:

They say that with all great things under heaven, that which has long been apart must become one, and that which has long been one must part: the kingdoms of Wei and Xu enter into an uneasy truce, while the kingdom of Jin becomes the kingdom of Xu's staunch ally. With the momentum gained from their victory in Yuhu and Lingyao, and with the support of their new ally, the kingdom of Xu quickly retakes several lost prefectures and turns to subdue the troops of the kingdom of Qian, driving them to the other side of the river and claiming new territory for the first time in many years. In time, the kingdom of Qian will become little more than a buffer as Xu grows great, but we have yet to reach those years as we view this early spring day, when Xu's military strength is still healing just as Yixing has slowly healed; bones mended but with long days of work and pain ahead before they can reclaim what had once been theirs, never mind surpassing their old limits.

To learn of the fate of countries, one should turn to the annals of history.

This is not a lesson in history but a tale of the people which shaped it, and so we will speak instead of Wonsik who returns to the kingdom of Jin, and of Joonmyun who Lu Han stubbornly refers to as Junmian but nonetheless asks him to stay on as his advisor to foreign affairs. Joonmyun hesitates - Lu Han scowls when Zitao shrieks for joy and exclaims something loudly in words that Lu Han does not understand. "He, ah, just asked for me to stay," Joonmyun explains, and Lu Han grumbles that he still doesn't speak their language. But nonetheless, he is beyond pleased when Joonmyun accepts.

This is an early spring day and the snow has melted. The first flowers have bloomed and the trees are clothed in dainty green buds. This is also a warm day, one with clear skies and no clouds, and although the wind still carries the fresh chill of the remains of winter, the sun cradles it as it flows through the hills. They're standing in the courtyard, the large one, as Zitao banters good naturedly with Shixun, doubling over in laughter when something the younger man says draws a punch from Kai. And then Zitao gets hit by both of them and he whines, threatening - and this, Lu Han does understand - to leave them behind.

As for Yixing, he stands by a pillar, one hand resting lightly against it as he watches the scene with a quiet smile on his face. He still hurts and his body is still weak, but the weather is good and there is no reason why he cannot be out here, today, with them. He tires easily, true, but the doctor had assured him that it would pass. He knows he is lucky that apart from several scars, there is little evidence of those several days, and though his hair is shorn, it will grow. He knows he is also lucky that he had been found when he had been, before he had bled to death.

(He also knows that he is not so good an actor that had it not been a former prince of Xu that had confirmed his poorly faked death, there is little chance he would still be alive. He may have been a traitor, but at the end of the day, Yixing could not bring himself to fully hate the man who had betrayed them.)

He likes Junmian, and finds him a good addition to the court. He makes Lu Han laugh, sometimes, and that is something none of Lu Han's former advisors did. He also curbs some of Lu Han's stupider ideas, and Yixing is grateful for that.

He's also grateful that even though Lu Han finally did oust Yixing's uncle from the court, he hadn't had him killed; Yixing knows that Lu Han had sorely wanted to. They'd forcibly retired several ministers, and several others had either left or died during or after the battle at Yuhu. As for those who remained, they were given the opportunity to stay and prove themselves worthy, before they too were slowly replaced by scholars who'd excelled at the examinations. The examinations were not a new idea, but they also had not been implemented in some time - they'd been put aside during the previous reign, under the argument that there was no time for study during war. Yet, as Junmian had pointed out, it was ever more appropriate during times of war to surround oneself with those who could think well and rationally, and appointing sons and uncles and brothers of those already favoured at court was no way to do that.

Yixing looks up when Lu Han turns and catches sight of him. Lu Han seems annoyed as he stalks over; Yixing waves away his worries, but that doesn't stop the king from huffing childishly as he comes to stand next to him.

"You're supposed to be resting!" Lu Han grumbles.

"I am resting," Yixing says, patting the pillar. "See, I'm letting it do the work."

Lu Han rolls his eyes and tugs Yixing over, until he's leaning against Lu Han instead. Yixing's first instinct is to pull away, alarmed by the people and the bright light of the sun - instead, he freezes before he slowly relaxes. Zitao knows and other than him and Lu Han, the courtyard is filled with Zitao's friends. They will not mind, and Lu Han's warmth is reassuring. Even these few short minutes have been tiring, and Yixing would never admit it, but he's grateful for the support. So, he simply laughs as he lets his weight fall against Lu Han's shoulders, prompting a half hearted grumble.

"Did you gain weight? You've gained weight," Lu Han complains, but he only pulls Yixing closer, lets him lean against him even more heavily.

They will be traveling lightly, Zitao and his companions. Or rather, it should be said that Zitao is the companion, and he is accompanying Shixun and Zhongren to the cities where they were born. It has been a long time since they were last there, as those provinces were some of the first that had been lost. Junmian had fussed over whether or not he should go with them, before Lu Han had pointed out that he'd be a pretty useless addition.

Although, if one were to speak of worry, Lu Han had no place to talk.

"You're acting like his mother," Yixing teases lightly. "They'll be fine."

Lu Han huffs, gently tapping Yixing on the shoulder. "I'm not worried, but you know what Zitao's like."

Yixing does indeed know what Zitao is like, which is why he thinks Lu Han's concern is even more ridiculous. Besides, they will be riding through land well populated by their own soldiers, and "he'd never let harm come to his friends, and you know how much he treasures Shixun."

"Still," Lu Han grumbles.

Yixing laughs, and grabs Lu Han's hand. "Stop fretting, he grew up long ago while you weren't watching," he says, and starts to lead Lu Han away.

"But I need to say bye!"

" _You already did!_ " Zitao yells across the courtyard. He makes a face and a shooing motion, shaking his head in exasperation. "We're going, don't do anything stupid while we're gone, we'll be safe, bye!"

"See," Yixing says, giving Lu Han's hand another tug. "Now let's go. You have something of your own to attend to."

"But..." Lu Han bites his lip, before he acquiesces and takes several quick steps to walk in front of Yixing.

Yixing tries to pull his hand back, but Lu Han only hangs on tighter, lacing their fingers together. 

"Considering we're about to meet your future wife, I don't know if this is appropriate," he points out, but he lets Lu Han do as he pleases, because after all, Lu Han is the king.

And King Lu quite agrees. "She'll just have to deal with it," he says.

"You know, I heard someone say she quite resembles General Xiumin."

"That was _once_!"

"They said she's really pretty, too."

"Uhuh."

"By the way, do you still have that scroll I left you? It's finally coming in handy."

Lu Han splutters. "Of course not!" he stammers.

Of course, they both know it's not true, but there are some truths that don't need to be said aloud to be understood, such as the truth that after the sun falls it will again rise, or that even the longest winter will end with a spring, or that between the spaces of their fingers, there is something as strong as friendship and even more lasting than the greatest mountains. It may be a truth that all things whole will one day break and all things separate will one day become whole - but it was also a truth that did not need to be said that just as until the day the earth split, the mountain would stand, they too would remain one for as long as sun would rise.

**Author's Note:**

> uh wow how did that end up being 17k. i mean all i wanted was to legitimately use jade pillar and chrysanthemum in pwp and in the end i failed miserably at the porn and somehow it's 17k idk man, idk. ok actual notes
> 
> i) one word i realised i used a lot was 'filial' - google is giving the defn' as "of or due from a son or daughter" but what i really had in mind were the Confucius teachings set out in 弟子规. [aside: imo yixing in the fic era would've been a good student of Confucius whereas lu han might've tried and flopped horribly and was constantly jibed at by xing for it lol]. the preface begins: 弟子规 圣人训， 首孝弟 次谨信 [this book, dizgui, are the words set out by the sage Confucius and are his teachings in regards to living life. first, in daily life, one must be respect ones parents, and to love and respect one's siblings, both elder and younger.] the preface sets out the "chapters" - the full text can be read here (http://tsoidug.org/dizigui_trans_simp.php). in a way, to obey these teachings can be said to be filial. also gosh but if you've ever read the entirety of the analects it is /so long/ but uh this is pretty long too, so i want to copy some of the relevant (to this fic) lines:  
> a) from 入则孝： 亲所好，力为具 亲所惡，谨为去 身有伤，貽亲忧 德有伤，貽亲羞  
> \-- that which parents like should be kept, while that which parents parents despise, should be carefully removed (eg, bad habits). one must take care of one's body, for injury to one's body will cause one's parents to worry. [Analects: confucious says: the body's skin and hair are received from parents, and must not be damaged.] one must be aware of flaws in one character, so as not to bring shame on one's parents  
> b) from: 出则第: 兄道友 弟道恭 兄弟睦 孝在中 财物轻 怨何生 言语忍 愤自泯  
> \-- those who are the elder siblings must display fraternal love towards their younger siblings, those who are younger siblings must understand how to respect their older siblings. when siblings can work together and get along well, the family is whole and in this itself, is being filial and respectful towards one's parents. when interacting with others, if one does not take material goods and money too seriously, then anger and hatred naturally will not arise. be patient in speech - speak of positive things, not negative things, hold back angry words and unnecessary attacks, and one's anger will naturally dissipate.  
> c) (a lot of things that are pretty time specific, but it's good to study the meaning behind it, not the actions itself.)  
> d) 事诸父 如事父 事诸兄 如事兄  
> \-- one must act towards and respect one's uncles and those of one's father's generation the same as one would respect one's own father, and towards one's uncles' children and those of the same generation, one must act towards and respect them the same as one would act towards and respect one's own siblings.
> 
> ii) "a certain fuckface". (warning: chinaline stan if u don't like that sorta thing) i still don't know how i feel about him and i guess i haven't really talked about it much since it happened, beyond raging at friends irl for mocking my rage >[ in the end "it's not what he did it's how he did it" and the way he acted leading up to and since then really irks me. i have a ridiculous number of han geng solo posters - i've artfully arranged my exo posters u_u maybe i'm petty, but so be it. at one point, i really did like him, and respect him for sticking through with something as tedious and long as the trainee life. when the rumours first broke, my first reaction was denial, my second was defense, but when it became clear he only cared about himself and was fine with leaving the others to take the blame, my third was disgust. call me delu shipper or w/e but i honestly believe that way back when he was one of yixing's first (chinese) friends in korea, and other than zhou mimi yixing is my baby boo. in the same vein, how dare you hurt tao like that >[ 
> 
> so one "Problem" when writing fanfic as opposed to fiction is that who the fuck is the bad guy. well, if you want to write a story with a bad guy. i definitely took way too much glee in killing him off, a few times. ahhh, 999 au and blowing up his guts, that was fun. ahhh, rot3k au and happily chopping off his head. oh wait, that didn't happen u_u tl;dr i wish i didn't feel the need to consign his existence to a non-entity and wish the worst on him and it's difficult to reconcile w those first nearly 2 years
> 
> iii) ty wcau mods and my xinglunons ilu muah 
> 
> iv) unintentionally, Xu guo strongly parallels that of Qin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_(state)). so i guess one day lu's descendants would end up being emperors of china \o/
> 
> v) the mean things that happened to xing were drawn from that which happened to Fan Sui which is the story behind a chengyu and handily has an english trans of an explanation: http://www.pureinsight.org/node/2528
> 
> im sry i didn't want to hurt you at all bb :( 
> 
> ok i'll shut up 88


End file.
